2024 Moss Wood Pinot Noir, Margaret River

Bright and fresh, with aromas of fresh and dried flowers, red cherries, pomegranates and ruby grapefruit, showing plenty of pinot funk and mineral tension. The palate is medium-bodied with concentrated fruit yet no excess weight, firmly integrated tannins and a long, refreshing finish. A topnotch Australian pinot noir with purity and precision. Drink or hold.

96 points Ryan Montgomery for James Suckling, October 2026

The first Moss Wood wine I ever tasted was a pinot back in 1981, so I have always had a soft spot for it. This fits snugly into the Moss Wood style, with plenty of generous, bright red fruit character on the nose and then delivered with a burst on the palate. Typically bright, with a lustrous energy evident in the light, red-crimson hues. Dry, chalky tannins help focus through to the finish. Drink to 2036.

95 points Ray Jordan Wine Review 2027

Always a fascinating wine. Purists will scream that Margaret River simply can’t do Pinot Noir, even though these guys have been making a fairly decent one for more than fifty years. Sometimes one has to wonder whether the naysayers simply aren’t going to allow Margaret River to have yet another variety that they do so well. The team used 30% whole bunches in the fermentation. The wine then spent a year and a half in French oak barriques for maturation, with 17% of them new. Pale purple/crimson in colour, the aromatics here really do stand out. We have notes of plums, cherries, cranberries, a touch of leaf litter, dried herbs and hint of milk chocolate. Bright acidity runs the length and there is a sleek texture through to very fine grained tannins, before a lingering finish. This is quite delicious and will drink impressively over the next five to eight years, during which time there is no reason to expect that it won’t improve further. Drink to 2034.

93 points Ken Gargett for Wine Pilot, October 2026

Founded by Bill and Sandra Pannell in 1969 and now led by Keith and Clare Mugford, Moss Wood has earned a stellar reputation for producing wines of exceptional quality and longevity. While the region is best known for Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, Moss Wood has quietly carved out a niche for Pinot Noir, making a style that’s distinctly Margaret River. The Pinot vines are planted in the original Moss Wood vineyard, situated on typical well-draining Wilyabrup gravelly loam soils over clay.

While approachable young, it has the structure to evolve gracefully for 8 to 12 years, gaining savoury complexity and silky texture with age.

More about this wine

All 2024 fruit was hand-picked and sorted, with 70% destemmed into small open fermenters and the balance included as whole bunches for a 48-hour cold soak before being allowed to warm naturally and inoculated with multiple cultivated yeast strains. Fermentation temperatures were kept below 32 degrees, and each batch was hand-plunged three times per day and tasted to monitor extraction and tannin balance before being pressed to stainless steel for malolactic conversion. Each batch was then racked and matured for 18 months in French oak barriques of which 17% were new, before being racked and blended in stainless steel. The unfined wine was cross-filtered and membrane-filtered ahead of bottling at the start of November, 2025.